Will climate change impact wine production?

As global temperatures change and extreme weather events become more severe, there are many concerned with the impact climate change is having on agriculture.

Not the least among them is the wine industry.

Wine grapes are known to be fragile at the best of times, and with severe weather events becoming more common, there is a risk of more damage to vines — especially in the Niagara region.

While we’re seeing warmer temperatures year round, meaning a longer growing season, Deb Inglis with Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute says there are some downsides.

“We’ll still get these cold snaps in the middle of winter and the grapevines aren’t just as ready for the cold temperature and it can cause damage to the vine, which can impact the production for the ongoing season.”

However, Inglis says that due to advances in technology, the impacts of these cold snaps have been minimized.

“Our industry is very resilient. They’re working on building resiliency all the time … and we have a lot of avenues to overcome some of these challenges.”

She points to the wine industry investing heavily in wind machines.

“Which will mix warm air above the vine with cold air at the vine level and actually raise that temperature four or five degrees Celsius, so the vine never sees that extremely cold temperature.”

Andre Proulx, winemaker, reviewer and host of Tasting Together on Global News Radio 640 Toronto, agrees that technology has a huge impact on keeping the vines safe from extreme weather events.

“A lot of people, when they think about agriculture, they picture Old MacDonald on a tractor, but the reality is that universities all over this continent and all over the world are looking to get ahead of not just climate change, but also look for ways to make grape vines healthier and make grapevines produce better quality product.”

He says one new technology is very exciting for the industry.

“Geotextiles is a new popular product you’ll see more grape growers starting to use where instead of burying the vines with dirt, every vineyard looks like a little set of army tents where they cover the vines with a tarp to protect them from the elements during the winter.”

Another option for grape growers is using genetically modified grapes using CRISPR technology. But Inglis is doubtful whether the industry will accept that.

“Could that be applied to grapevines? It could, but is there market acceptance of that from the consumer? At this stage of the game, there isn’t. There is a huge resistance in Europe; it’s a very traditional industry.”

Proulx, however, disagrees.

“Virtually all wine grapes are ‘genetically modified.'”

He points to a disease that threatened most of the vineyards in Europe at the turn of the 20th century. The only thing that stopped vineyards from going out of business was grafting the European vines to American rootstocks.

“Wine grapes don’t exist on the planet without genetic modification.”